NO PANACEA TO FOOD SECURITY

A briefing paper on the MYTH that GM crops are necessary to feed India’s growing population

The introduction of Genetically Modified (GM) crops have kick started a huge controversy across the world which has never been seen before with any other technologies in agriculture.

Genetic Engineering as a technology and its products, Genetically Engineered/modified organisms, are yet to answer many a questions on their impacts to environment and human health. The unpredictability and irreversibility of Genetic Engineering and the uncontrollability of GE crops in the environment coupled with studies pointing at the potential risk to human health and environment has resulted in a controversy across the world around the need for introducing such potentially risky organisms.

Added to this is also the corporate control of the seeds, the most important input in agriculture, through this technology.

Due to this growing scientific evidence on the lack of safety of GM crops and reality of corporate monopoly in seeds, majority of countries have shunned this so-called gene revolution path for agricultural development. It has been 19 years since the first GM crop was introduced for commercial cultivation and today 75% of GM crop cultivation happens in just 3 countries; USA, Brasil and Argentina. Even today only less than 4% of the global agriculture land is under GM crops.